Question

I have process that needs to create a bunch of records in the database and roll everything back if anything goes wrong. What I want to do is this:

Public Structure Result     Public Success as Boolean     Public Message as String End Structure  Private _Repository as IEntityRepository  Public Function SaveOrganization( _     ByVal organization As rv_o_Organization) As Result     Dim result = Result.Empty      _Repository.Connection.Open()     _Repository.Transaction = _Repository.Connection.BeginTransaction()      ''//Performs validation then saves it to the database     ''// using the current transaction     result = SaveMasterOrganization(organization.MasterOrganization)     If (Not result.Success) Then         GoTo somethingBadHappenedButNotAnException     End If      ''//Performs validation then saves it to the database     ''//using the current transaction     result = SaveOrganziation(dbOrg, organization)     If (Not result.Success) Then GoTo somethingBadHappenedButNotAnException  somethingBadHappenedButNotAnException:     _Repository.Transaction.Commit()     _Repository.Connection.Close()     Return result End Sub 

Is this an ok use of the GoTo statement, or just really bad design? Is there a more elegant solution? Hopefully this sample is able to get the point across

Answer 1

If you have to ask, don’t do it.

For your specific code, you could do it like this:

Public Function SaveOrganization(ByVal organization As rv_o_Organization) As Result     Dim result As Result = Result.Empty      _Repository.Connection.Open()     _Repository.Transaction = _Repository.Connection.BeginTransaction()      'Performs validation then saves it to the database      'using the current transaction     result = SaveMasterOrganization(organization.MasterOrganization)      'Performs validation then saves it to the database      'using the current transaction     If result.Success Then result = SaveOrganziation(dbOrg, organization)      _Repository.Transaction.Commit()     _Repository.Connection.Close()     Return result End Sub